pathfinderfandomcom-20200223-history
Boggard
| environment = Temperate marshes | source = Pathfinder Bestiary | page = 37 |image = }} The boggard (pronounced BAH-gurd) are primitive toad-men with vile dispositions who have long plagued travellers who pass too close to their swampy homes. Appearance Boggards look like a horrible cross between a humanoid, like a frog that has stolen a humans posture and ability to use weapons. Boggards normally appear only four feet tall as they sit back resting on their long, muscular hind legs like a frog, at full height they are substantially taller. The boggard's head look almost exactly like that of its frog counter part with bulging round eyes and a vast mouth lined not with teeth but a single sharp ridge of bone and filled with a large, extendible, sticky tongue. The boggards torso looks vaguely humanoid, with its elongated arms capable of manipulating tools, but is covered in the warty, grey-green skin of an amphibian. Its webbed hands normally wield crude weapons made of indigenous swamp material, often clubs of wood or bone studded with the sharp teeth of local swamp beasts. The armour boggards wear is of similar construction being made of crudely cured reptile hides and the giant turtle shells. Habitat & Ecology Boggards seem to prefer temperate swamps and marshlands although breeds have also been found along the river banks of the tropical rainforests of the Mwangi Expanse in Garund. Boggards, like the frogs they are so closely related to, change their appearance depending on their environment. In the northern Mushfens of Varisia the boggards resemble toads while in the distant Sodden Lands tribes of boggards sporting the bright colours of poisonous tree frogs war with tribes that are the large boggards that are the dull browns of cane toads. Supposedly these variation in colour often indicate unique abilities like tougher skin, poisonous flesh, sticky hands and feet and several other amphibian adaptations. Despite their aberrant appearance, boggards embrace their environment. For example the boggards living in Brinestump Marsh collect and covet the brinestump clover that grow there. The life cycle of the boggard resembles that of frogs more than humans, beginning with their birth as tadpoles in to the fetid birthing pools that form the centre of any boggard village. As tadpoles boggards learn the first lesson of their lives, that survival in the swamps is brutal, the tadpoles are forced to compete with their siblings for food. By the time they have spent half a year in this state the tadpoles have reached three foot in length, they then begin sprouting arms and legs, it takes another three months for the arms and legs to grow to full size at which point the juvenile boggards emerge from the birthing pool. The juvenile boggards are grouped into gangs that are lead by young but experienced hunters who teach the juvenile boggards how to track and kill. At the end of this two years of training the young boggard is sent off on a rite of initiation where he must hunt and killing a sentient humanoid, if the boggard fails to do this within a month then he is cast out of the tribe and most do not survive such exile. If they succeed they are then considered a adult boggard, fully part of the tribe. Society The society of the boggards is a primitive one but surprisingly egalitarian with status within the tribe determined entirely by skill and their acomplishments (though size does play a part in mating rituals). These tribes live within primitive villages deep within the swamp, the huts they live in are little more than hollow mounds of mud filled with a dirty pool of swamp water. Most tribes are led by powerful priest-kings who have been fed rare, hallucinogenic, blue dragonflies that allow the priest-kings to hear the whisper words of their dark deity, the demon lord known as Gogunta. The priest-kings are bigger and stronger than the rest of the tribe and as they age they only grow larger and more frog like till they no longer look like boggards but resemble giant, sentient, croaking frogs. As they age not only do priest-kings grow in size but in appetite both physical and otherwise demanding constant feeding, new mates and conquest of the surrounding swamps. Some rare tribes that live in the most ancient swamps of Golarion, places like the Mushfens, the Stinking Sink and the Hollow Morass, are ruled by powerful spawn of Gogunta called a mobogo. These creatures are worshipped by their boggard tribes who believe they are the direct offspring of Gogunta herself, mobogo's resemble huge three eyed frogs with dragon-like wings that are the size of houses and are, in the boggard's eye, an image of the divine. Interestingly the commands of a mogobo when in charge of a tribe seem far from divine will as for the most part they demand nothing except endless supplies of food. Many tribes who are subservient to mogobos are actually led by a priest-king from behind the throne, these cunning priest-kings impose their own agenda on the mogobo's endless hungry croaks. Following the formation of the Eye of Abendego, some tribes of boggards in the Sodden Lands have forsaken Gogunta to worship Rovagug. These boggards conducted a religious war against the Gogunta-worshipers, largely eliminating them in the area. Many of the Sodden Lands tribes are ruled by half-fiend boggards, or by Hezrou demons. References Category:Humanoids Category:Boggard subtype creatures Category:Chaotic evil creatures Category:CR 2 creatures